When I started my blog over 6 months ago I had no idea everything I would need to learn to be even remotely successful at this new hobby of mine. I saw the term SEO batted around and had no idea what it even stood for or how it related to me. Eventually I picked up that it meant Search Engine Optimization, which really didn't explain much to me. I started to gather that it had something to do with how we come up in the Google search and involves backlinks and code, which are terms that made my head hurt so I just went back to looking at pretty pictures of yarn. The past few weeks for some reason I've suddenly gotten inspired to understand more about how my blog gets seen. I am in no way even close to an expert about this stuff so if you are looking for answers I'm not the one to come to but I figured that there are probably some others who are as clueless as I am that might appreciate a few places to start.
To let you know how clueless I really was I didn't even know that Google WebMaster Tools even existed. I had installed Google Analytics early on but was only using it for the bare necessities like seeing what searches people used to find me and how many unique visitors I had. A few weeks ago I stumbled across a very user friendly blog with some great tips that even I was able to put to use right away. Gary Conn puts things in easy terms and goes step by step showing screen shots so that I was able to start using the Webmaster Tools to find out how many links I had and any errors that Google had discovered in my site. It also helped show me what searches I was most visible in. Surprisingly I found that a post that I did as a throw away a few months ago about the Facebook MeME, defining your life by song titles, was the top of the searches for some reason. I still don't know how to recreate this phenomena but it helps to know how people are finding you anyways.
So from Gary I learned how to add a sitemap to my blog for Google here. I also learned how to add meta tags and site descriptions to my template code on blogger here. I promise it sounds scarier than it is. For some of you this is probably like baby stuff that you conquered the first week of blogging but I am so not a techie.
I'll share my observations of blog directories and trying to get links later in the week. I really had no idea how important those links really were until recently. I now understand why my Google ranking is so bad, since I had made no effort to get or trade links in the past. If you have any beginner tips on SEO please share!
I am sharing a few bad pics of my niece Jess with her obsession. She has now made close to 60 finger knitting creations. It was so inspiring to see her find pure joy in the act of making something with her hands. She has now started a club in her class where she teaches kids how to finger knit and they work together after school. They are planning on setting up a booth at their church fish fry the next few Fridays to sell them and donate the money to charity. How sweet is that?
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